“Ash is blowing around, it’s definitely getting wet and going into the marsh and it’s definitely getting into people’s lungs,” said Kirstie Pecci, Zero Waste Project director at the Conservation Law Foundation, which has been working with residents to stop the landfill expanding.
“Last summer, we watched in shock as President Trump effectively nullified the monument status of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts by opening it to commercial fishing,” said Bradley Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation. “Defending this monument is critical for protecting valuable species, confronting the climate crisis, and leaving a healthy ocean for future generations.”
“If signed by the governor, this bill would restore Massachusetts’s national leadership in addressing climate change, and the disproportionate impact of pollution on Black, brown, and other environmental justice communities in the state,” said Caitlin Peale Sloan, acting director of the Conservation Law Foundation in Massachusetts
Conservationists call the rule a good first step, but way late, and it doesn’t do nearly enough to avert the whale’s extinction. Here’s Erica Fuller, of the Conservation Law Foundation: ‘We’re concerned about the agency’s reliance on weak rope,’ Fuller says, ‘and we’re concerned that it doesn’t appear that they are going to take any emergency action before these measures are effective on the water.’
“These proposed regulations are a big step in the right direction,” said Erica Fuller, a senior attorney at the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, one of several groups that has sued the Fisheries Service to protect the whales. “But in light of the fact that Massachusetts waters have the highest known seasonal density of right whales in the world, a long-term solution that allows fishing and right whales to coexist is imperative.”
Portsmouth’s bold and important single-use ordinances were supported widely when approved a year ago. Immediate implementation of these ordinances presents an opportunity to get going with an initiative to reduce waste, save taxpayer money, and improve the health and wellbeing of our community and environment.
“People who depend on the bus are constantly delayed as the Tobin is inundated with single-occupancy cars. This new lane will slash those travel times benefiting Chelsea residents and workers,” Staci Rubin, an attorney at the foundation, said in a statement Friday.
“Not only have we lost 10 years of opportunities to clean these waters up, we have in fact made the problem significantly worse by allowing new systems to come into these waterways that are already terribly degraded,” said Chris Kilian, Vice President of Strategic Litigation at CLF.
The Conservation Law Foundation and others are calling for the immediate closure of fisheries off southern New England and possibly elsewhere, where the whales are known to congregate and feed.
Staci Rubin, a senior attorney with CLF, also said in a statement that the measures will help ensure transit riders are prioritized when the economy kicks back into gear. “Now is the time to improve transit options and avoid the gridlock that plagued our region before the pandemic,” she said.
